


2:22

by tzingfung



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Hurt No Comfort, Kerberos Mission, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pining, Radio, Sad Ending, Some Drug Use, Wedding, Wedding Planning, audio love letters, secret radio skyping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzingfung/pseuds/tzingfung
Summary: Before Keith and Shiro were to split for a very long time —Shiro, off to the Kerberos Mission and Keith stuck down in the Academy, waiting— Matt had created a radio programme for the two lovebirds to send secret audio messages to one another. The only time it was possible was at 2:22am, where it would not be detected from any other. But would it be enough while the lovers yearn for one another’s touch more and more each passing day?





	2:22

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capt_toes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capt_toes/gifts).



> A belated birthday gift for my good friend, V, who deserves the galaxy and beyond that.

**DAY XI-EXPEDITION KERBEROS**

> _“Keith,_
> 
> _It’s the first day since we landed, the ship has sailed and it has sailed high and far beyond your reach. If only you could see the view of space outside the ship right now, frosted stars lighting our way, a string of dying lights’ keeping us close even though we’re so humanly far apart._  
>  _I feel eager down to my fingertips but my soul so ripped from yours. How are you down there? Please tell me you didn’t get in trouble in class again, I’ve only been gone for a little while._
> 
> _Wait a little while longer…_
> 
> _Wait for me, Keith, baby, leave that anger where it should rest and die, below the depths of your touch._
> 
> _And as always I will be with you by your side at 2:22._
> 
> _Love you always close and afar.”_

Keith, the one of such distraught, his heart wrung tightly like a pulled on drenched cloth had his head to his laptop, where the audio message ran finished purring with static, and his hand tapping against his inner thigh, it tingled to its momentum. Bounced to every elasticated breath. Jagged and laboured much like the untouched lust for Shiro all the way since the man left him alone for his mission.

_Shiro… Do you blame me?_ Keith thoughts bounced back and forth inside his skull.

_Do you blame me for feeling the way I do, after you do heavily leave my side at the crack of dawn, without a trace or sight?_

Keith’s eyes, windows to a dreamy realm, half there and a half attempting to peter out, creep back to the small sweet sappy voice of Shiro and its homely warming scent.

Keith knew very well this message was delayed, like every message they had sent through this makeshift crapshoot just to hear an ounce of one another, just a small hum and a drum of the vibrations of the desperation in each other’s voices. Thanks to Matt’s technological contraption, a little secret he hinted to Shiro behind the commander’s lawfully scornful back, they could do just that. Though the distance between them was a little just out of reach, enough so the other could not reply to their lover so instantly and would have to wait another day to hear their response.

The boy with the tired eyes, hitched up on his elbow, sighed ardently. Looking down at his scribbling rushed notes blotted in red ink, bleeding like his love did. He realised all that was wanted to be said now sounded incredibly ludicrous, useless, worthless.  
Nothing compared to the feelings he really felt.

The days dragged sorrowfully, how could he not feel so detached and so broken from his own feelings and heartache?

He pressed the button to record.

> _“Shiro.”_

He started, staring into the white paint splattered sky dotting into shining stars above him, through his skylight. Somewhere between those stars was Shiro.

Drumming harder against his thigh, a pendulum of broken thoughts.

> _“Nothing special down here.”_

He rolled his eyes, his lips kissing promisingly to his mic, straddled around to the other side of the bed, lifting the mic now like a baby’s toy. I don’t know… Maybe I’m lying to myself.

It so seemed, when Keith first began recording his voice to the hum and pings! Of the above pipes and their constant whines, somehow he felt pretty stupid. Hearing the sound of his own audacious voice ripping the ambience of his own room into two, it felt like a law was broken. It felt silly almost, he was never one to keep a log or a diary of some sort, and this was pretty much on the dot.

So, maybe that’s why the earlier audio letters all began with “uhh” and “Well… shit.” being caught under his breath, though, it always seemed to bring a smile to the recipient on the other side, always one for loving Keith’s klutzy side, where he fumbled for words that would never come to usher through his crescent-shaped lips.  
But then he realised.

After the days became quieter without him. No one else really spoke to Keith, no one really asked how he was if he was okay or not after so many witnessed how close he was to Shiro, how close he is with him. After all that, he realised, he was truly alone, only but a whisper to his shadow to speak to.

That’s when the words ran steadfast and wholesomely towards Shiro, the way it once did before.

> _“Everything seems so different without you. I know, I say that a lot these days, but shit, I don’t know Shiro. You packed up and left one day and my whole body and soul has been aching ever since. Ripped from yours. I feel like I’m in a cocoon, wounded up tightly, everyone who fucking cares, which by the way isn’t a whole lot, attempts to talk to me, it’s all a muffle, broken clasped up words, so far out of my reach. And that’s it they give up._
> 
> _Today I felt truly alone without you._
> 
> _Anyway._
> 
> _Bye, love you… goddamnit Shiro, I love you.”_

* * *

 

**DAY XX-EXPEDITION KERBEROS**

It was a feverish Sunday in the middle of May where the sandy ground was a little more crimson and fleshed out against the radiating hot gassy sphere in the stratosphere.

Keith Kogane found himself in the back of an arcade one day, in a dingy bathroom, ill-lit just as its stench. Where the stall door couldn’t possibly grasp the concept of fully closing, he was smoking a ton of weed like the world was ending tomorrow.

Because Keith reassured himself, for him, it basically was.  
Why?

It was actually all Shiro’s fault.

Fucking Shiro, as always.

He brought the rudimental blunt to his lips and his brain cleared some more. The smell inside the bathrooms was sensational, to say the least, but no one would find him here, which also meant no one would suspend him from the academy for such actions.

He needed this. Give him some credit, he’s not doing crack, or killing someone. Okay so all of that is a little dramatic, Keith was the dramatic type. He was the angry type that needed to pull out a few punches to feel something for once.

He wondered why that was the case, he also wondered why he hadn’t smoked before because _wow._

The smoke blurred his vision, the ricocheting of the pinball machines and sci-fi buzz of the arcade’s gaming consoles rattled his bones in a remedial way.

“Kids like you need to do something with your life.”

Keith rubbed his eyes before clearing to stare deadpan at a rather tough runner before him.

“Men like you need to mind your own goddamn business.” He stepped on the stubbed still burning wildly on the glittered stained laminated vinyl flooring.

Keith’s high oozing his logical sense, and where the hell the floor was as he shot up from the toilet seat.

The biker dude _tsked,_ it was obvious he didn’t take the academy student getting stoned in his undershirt seriously.

“Alright, kid, easy.” His hands patted down towards the rotating floor, mockingly.

It only lit the fuse under Keith’s ass, even more, he bit his lip trying to centre himself.

“Today’s not a good day, old man.” Tempting fate, that’s what it all was, he guessed, it had always been the case.

The man got a little red, rocked between the tips of his toes to his crushing heels in a sleuthing manner, the noise of it crunching back of forth might as well have been the noise of him crushing skulls against his sole.

“What? You broke up with your boyfriend or something, pretty boy?”

So many things in that one sentence riled Keith up from his tailbone to the top of his spine, from one to hundred in a second. When will that joke ever get old?

Keith staggered forwards out of the cubicle and punched the man square in the abs through his skin thin black muscle tee.

The biker’s stature didn’t even stutter, but he also didn’t give Keith a second thought. Hitting Keith accurately in the eye, forcing into a running faucet and leaving him behind a swinging door, as all Keith could hear was the force of rush of running water and the thudding of what felt like a second heart in his eye.

  
There hasn’t been any message from Shiro for days at 2:22 am.

To be fair, it was Keith’s turn to respond.

And it was that last message from Shiro that became larger than life.

> _“Keith, though the days imitate one and another, I would love to look forward to the day you are mine once again.”_

There was a long pause, full of rustling static and the thud of a rushing heart, a streaming waterfall, Keith’s heart.

> _“Will you marry me, Keith?”_

Well, so much for getting stoned and contemplating about boy troubles in peace.

Keith arrived back to the academy, dodging every officer he stumbled upon in the corridors, knowing fully well it must be way past his curfew. And there’s the fact that he smelt and looked completely fucking stoned. He could have been caught a mile away.

Shutting the cold metal door behind him in his room, it was just the buzzing and groaning of the pipes and electricity, and between him and that, were his unspoken thoughts.

And his gut clinging deeply to the floor, at every moments his wandering thoughts fell short once more back to what his final answer maybe.

_It shouldn’t be this hard._ Keith thought as he lay flat against his belly dangling through his upturned shirt on his rock hard bed (Shiro, for the life of him, had a wondrous bed, cushioning memory foam, layers upon layers of thick soft quilt covers and mountains of pillows). Though life was always a little harder for him than any other.

Keith lifted up his laptop then picked up his mic, fingering it thinly between one hand to the next.

His answer wasn’t much up for debate, that was never the issue, it was the seething hot temptation of fear breathing its nasty foul breath down his neck, the ‘What Ifs’ breaking any reverie of dreamlike states into bleak reality.

But nevertheless.

> _"Of course, Shiro._
> 
> _I do."_

* * *

 

**DAY XXI-EXPEDITION KERBEROS**

It was an acquired taste.

The idea that someone would bestow their entire life to you, to entwine it with your own.  
To be entrusted with such an amount of fiery love, the fire consuming enough that it puts some off entirely, that would swing as an ongoing pendulum for that length of time and of course to feel the commitment tough and as endearing as diamonds. To stay as everlasting strong until the end.

There’s that.

Marriage as a concept was something a little more than daunting to Keith, someone who has commitment issues of all kinds.

Keith was aware of this, Shiro knows of this, which was probably why he didn’t pressure Keith for an immediate answer. Even still, Keith felt bad, awful even, because as soon as his thoughts meld back to Shiro, everything falls into place, as crazy as it sounds, as soon as he thinks of Shiro, he is grounded. Everything is fine again. All the broken pieces return to its place.

Keith couldn’t imagine a world without Shiro, a world where he had to be with anyone but Shiro.

It made this breach between time and distance all that harder for him.

Shiro’s last message grew from the silence, a musical laughter ringing tendrils in Keith’s ears and a song played in his heart.

> _"Of course…"_

There was a readable smile there, coursing the winds through his lips.

> _"I’m guessing nothing big then."_

Keith had a thought, a split and spluttering kind, where everything was marooned with white and frills but it lay flat and still in his heart.

> _"Nothing big."_

He responded next.

Before it continued with the diary entry of that day.

> _"Same old. Same old without you, there is never anything new, or exciting."_

But the days did loll with something else, a spur of a new kind of rush in the air. It filled Keith with an enthralling enticement that yanked his heart. He wanted to scream nose to nose at people that as soon as the popular and famous, Takashi Shirogane, returns from his epic endeavours he is to marry him, Keith Kogane. Fuck the haters then, fuck the people who disregarded Keith at his lowest point and most certainly good riddance to the academy, what would he need of it at that point? All his dreams vanished up in the clouds in a puff of smoke, with Shiro.

> _“There would be red Chrysanthemum supported by Baby’s Breath and the ruby lanterns dancing like fireflies above us as we dance to Moonage Daydream in the warmth of mid-Spring.”_

Keith was dreaming with a heart full of hilarity and delectation. He climbed upon the rooftop one night, knowing all too well how forbidden and in trouble he would be if he got caught but the night’s fresh air was so crisp and blissful, cutting like a knife in his throat and chest as he inhaled, it was worth every bit of risk.

It was another day and another day’s trip to the rooftop only this time when the sun was still lathering the horizon with its hot orange bath when Keith returned and he listened to Shiro’s response that came in a few hours late.

> _“Nothing big, babe? Don’t blame me when you see what this looks like and you want to run for the hills.”_

Shiro was joking, of course, every chime in his singalong voice broke with a breathy sort of carefree joy that made Keith break into an uncontrollable chuckle. _Love. Wow, who knew it would bite me so cleanly?_

They joked a lot, the more days that tumbled by with a quick sweep, the more Keith thoroughly planned their wedding with deep conviction that it was sourly not big but it was certainly so.

> _“Fairy Lights.”_

One message Keith had sent, it spoke only with determination.

Shiro opened up with his usual laughter, stoked like a fresh crackling fire.

> _“Way ahead of you. Here’s what I’m imagining and you can just chime in.”_

Oh, he knew Keith couldn’t, he wouldn't hear it for the next 24 hours at least, maybe that’s why he felt so confident in this idea.

> _“The hall would be filled with a galaxy’s worth, beautiful as if it really were dotted with the billions of stars that shine around the two of us, no matter how far apart we are, we both see the stars. Then there would be the crescent moons and the shining planets dotting the place. But with the fairy lights, that’s the best bit, the hero of the show as it were. They would rain from the curtains, fall from the edges of the tables and we’ll fill them in jars as still dead fireflies.”_

Keith could hear his smile, his pearly whites gleaming at his accomplishment, he was proud of himself and rightfully so because Keith was in love with this idea, in love with him to the brim, and that’s how he came up with a surprise for Shiro, he just needed to make sure first.

* * *

**DAY XXXIII-EXPEDITION KERBEROS**

It took a while, and while that was the case and Keith was fully prepared for such, he was still eagerly bursting at the seams ready to spill his deepest secrets to Shiro.

Keith pulled tooth and nail for this, he finally got a hold of Commander Iverson. He was a tough nutter that pulled every string to hate on Keith for no goddamn reason. It may have been to do with the fact to do with Shiro. The only person he would show some effects of sentiment.  
His favourite.  
And well, even Keith could tell he wasn’t the best influence.

So when Keith did take a bite from his little confidence he had in his plan, attempting for the face of “good examples” the Commander didn’t take time to mask his distaste for this student.

“You want what now?”

He didn’t want to tell anyone that Shiro popped the question, he wanted to flourish in the astonishment on everyone’s faces.

But he wanted this, needed it even.

“I would like permission sir, if you will, to use the Stargazing Hall.” This was in its simplest terms, a term coined by students for the name was far more scientific and prosaic, it didn’t give the hall justice.  
  
The hall was a ship’s ride away, it was surrounded by the galaxy’s touch. Used for special occasions, and boy, if this wasn’t the perfect time to use it.

Iverson only laughed maniacally behind his hand, his eyes wrinkled with pure disbelief.

“This won’t change my answer, for it's already set, Kogane, but I am curious.” He bends forwards, Keith had the ego to not budge, which only made the Commander’s temple throb with anger. “Whatever is this for?”

Keith heaved a breath that stung in his cheeks, chewing up his answer, “I’m getting married.”

The look of astoundment on his face was a little ludicrous. Keith did everything he could to hold in his annoyance.

He laughed it off and through the cackling he had found little breath to ask simply, “To who?”

Keith waited for the laugh to pass slowly and silently until he patiently responded, “Takashi Shirogane.” _Of course._

The man’s face was unreadable a thin lined form where there were a smile and an unfinished chuckle.

  
Keith was in a new set up, he loved to sit about in different spots around the academy, so long as he wasn’t interrupted as he spoke in length for his audio messages to Shiro about his plain but now somewhat placid days now thanks to the proposal.

This time he was in the cornerstone of the red sandy dunes of the desserts that held deep thickets of land surrounding the academy’s thin grounds.

It was silent but the whistle of the groaning breeze and the birds that muttered sweet little things.

> _“Shiro.”_

There was always a little instinctive smile that purred with that name, an underlying tone that resembled his love for the man. Memories unfolded with the wisp of that sweet name.

He wanted to run out with his raspy voice of excitement ready to spill the surprise and good news. _I have the venue!_ He wanted to scream out, how Iverson wept and it shocked Keith so much he couldn’t leave even when he has been shooed away and was given the thumbs up for the Stargazing Hall.

Keith wanted to pour out about the description he so vividly would the wedding unfold there, see them dancing in that large oval room far away from everything else surrounded by the milky way and the hundreds of stars that would never allow you feel alone.

He wanted to say all these things with the spur of the quick tide of winds but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t say more than Shiro’s name, over and over.

> _“Shiro? ...Shiro?”_

There was something different.

Off.

“Static,” Keith said to the winds as if they would respond back with a solution.

Keith returned to his room, by this time the sky was illuminated with the morning sun but Keith couldn’t sleep.

He could only think.

Usually, when he speaks, there was no static. Of course, but maybe it's just a cosmetic issue, maybe the message would have worked just fine?

“It’s probably nothing.” But Keith still couldn’t keep his eyes shut.

The next day it showed. Dry and shallow and most of all he was grouchy, more than he usually perpetrates.

There was something a little different in the air today as if everyone was holding their breath for something.

Keith discovered why this was the case, later that afternoon, in the middle of class.

The teacher trudged in, face swollen, biting his cheek.

“Everyone settle down now.”

Keith was sitting by the window, staring out at the still painting that loomed before him, he didn’t budge when everyone sat back down and resided in their attention towards the teacher.

The teacher’s coughing erupted in the quietened dusty air and there was a huge silence that ensued and engulfed the room, it was almost suffocating. Like a scream needed to fill in space.

“Before we start today’s lesson, I have some news to share.”

Someone murmured a joke, _oh thank god you’re finally leaving!_ Everyone laughed under hushed breaths.

Keith was a little surprised the teacher didn’t retaliate like he was usually known for, he just closed his eyes solemnly and waited until the students were silenced once more.

“As you all know there Kerberos Mission has been on its route for quite some time now, successfully doing its job with its courageous crew.”

There were a few wolf whistles and cheering. Keith turned at the mention of Kerberos, curious. He glanced at the teacher, he looked like he swallowed a frog.

The teacher sat down now, drilling his fingernails into his wooden desk, no one else dared to move, there it was again, a holding of breath so tight, Keith could burst.

“Sadly, we discovered last night, they were in fact not so successful as we once assumed.”

“What does that mean?” Someone piped up, it sounded like a world away, there was blood throbbing in Keith’s hearing.

Another sigh from the teacher, exasperated, tired and taxing. “It means, the crew from the Kerberos missions are MIA and there is a high factor that they’re gone for good.”

“No!” Keith shouted it felt like someone else did. He noticed he shot up on his legs, though they felt weak and ready to collapse and give in on themselves. The next thing he knew he bolted down the halls.

The air was heavy with the greyish fog that landed on his head, his chest strangled. Hands trembling by his side, sending shaky vibrations down to his knees.

Which was why as soon as he ran into the next room his legs failed him and he dropped on the floor in a devastating mess. This room, through the fog that clouded Keith’s mind, seemed logical at the time, it was the room owned by Commander Iverson.

The man that had softened his heart for only a little while, for Keith a day ago, marched towards him like nothing ever happened.

“Kogane gets up, this is a professional space.”

Keith shook his head as he stood, his eyes murky with misery.

“How could you let this happen?”

The man sat back down rubbing his knuckles in contemplation.

“I do not know what you’re on about, I did nothing.”

Keith slammed his hands down the desk.

“Liar! You did all of this! You made Shiro go on that mission, knowing all too well how dangerous it could have been- has been!”

Keith was becoming light-headed, he wanted to scream his lungs out bloody, allow his chaos to flood.

“Shiro brought himself on that mission, he was all too eager, it is no one but his own fault.”

_His own fault..._  
_How mirthless._

Keith saw it coming before the wheels in his mind churned a simple logical thought, by that time it was all too late.

  
He could hardly process anything.  
Keith was in his room packing, being completely expelled from the academy after beating up the Iverson’s smug face, screaming Shiro’s name over and over and over. Until the words became scour.

Outside the building looked lonesome and foreign. Keith felt he had never been there at all. All those memories where he first Shiro here, how many had they spent some heartfelt nights together, laughed in those large corridors, it felt so distant and far, someone else’s memory replayed and retold for him to hear for his own entertainment.

The sack of his clothes, where his belongings and a few things that Shiro left in his room were in lingered between his heels and the bus stop where he stood waiting. Keith had felt his insignificance pull at his gut.

By now, he had nowhere to go, he didn’t know what to do, he had no one to turn. A bus to nowhere.  
  
Keith’s mind didn’t reach that far, it barely lingered past the news of Shiro’s death.  
  
He sat down on the edge of a curb. It was quiescent except for a few shrieks of laughter hauntingly in the distance, probably the students inside having a good time, already forgetting the devastating news of the morning onto something new and shiny to play with.

Keith looked at his laptop in his hands, now with no value to its name.

“There’s no use for you now.” He was about to throw it into the road, far away so he wouldn’t need the reminder of Shiro.

But he paused, the laptop just out of his reach in his fingertips, he brought it back down to earth.

He turned it on, got his mic out, went onto the chat radio programme where the two lovers had sent their loving audio messages to one another. Pressed to speak and once more static returned.

It wasn’t that he expected otherwise but there was this small ounce for hope for a miracle bounced at the bottom of his heart, then it had laid still.

Keith closed his eyes, stinging raw. Everything was so broken, so rightfully painful as he pulled the mic in closer. Keith looked up seeing the brewing clouds of a coming storm.

> _“I’ll see you around again one day, Spaceboy.”_

Maybe. 


End file.
